It is hanging out there, an oasis of glorious possibility, an almost unthinkable achievement for a basketball program that has never won an NCAA tournament game and six weeks ago had never appeared in The Associated Press Top 25 rankings.

“It is the big question that everybody is thinking about, but no one wants to talk about on the team,” captain D.J. Gay admitted after practice Tuesday. “Nobody is really saying, ‘If we win this game, we can go 15-0 and be ranked in the top 10.’

“But it’s on my mind.”

The No. 14 Aztecs take their 8-0 record to Cal tonight at 7:30 in what amounts to the last really tough test – coaches, of course, will dispute the definition of “tough” – of their 15-game nonconference season. The Bears already have knocked off No. 21 Temple on a neutral court, blasted New Mexico by 25 at home, won at Iowa State on Saturday in front of 13,284, and they’re coached by Mike Montgomery.

But the schedule does lighten considerably after that, meaning the Aztecs could be looking at either 15-0 or 14-1 entering Mountain West Conference play depending on what happens in 11,877-seat Haas Pavilion tonight.

Or look at it this way: The Aztecs have an RPI of No. 9 (a computerized formula that ranks all 345 Division I teams). Five of their six remaining nonconference opponents have RPIs of 168, 250, 270, 271 and 332. The sixth is Div. III Occidental on New Year’s Eve.

“A big game,” Coach Steve Fisher said of Cal.

“A really big game,” Gay said.

A lot will depend on which Cal team shows up, the one that handled a ranked Temple team or the one that scored five points in the first half — they were 2-of-25 from the field and went scoreless for the final 9:16 — in a 57-44 loss to Notre Dame the following afternoon.

How’s that possible?

“A young team 3,000 miles away from home playing a game 15 hours later,” said Cal assistant Gregg Gottlieb, who was on Fisher’s SDSU staff for eight seasons. “We’re young. We’ve got freshmen who are playing 30 minutes per game. We’re still trying to figure out who we are and how good we can be.”

The Bears (5-2) lost four starters from the 24-11 team that lost to eventual champion Duke in the second round of the NCAA tournament, plus four other lettermen. One graduated, one transferred, one (7-foot-3 center Max Zhang) signed with a pro team in China, one (Omondi Amoke) was kicked off the team. That amounted to 68.2 points per game, or 88 percent of the offense.

But the incoming freshman class was ranked 17th in the nation by Rivals.com and includes California player of the year Allen Crabbe, and 6-8 post Harper Kamp returned after sitting out last season with a knee injury.

“They’re good,” Fisher said. “Don’t let the five points against Notre Dame fool you. … We’ve got a good team. I’ve said that from the beginning. How good, I don’t know. We’ll be tested for sure (Wednesday).”

But that’s the thing about his Aztecs. They have been tested several times already this season, both at home and on the road. They have outscored teams away from home by a combined two points in the first half, and 201-139 in the second half.

“Their seniors are playing like seniors,” Gottlieb said. “They’re confident. What they’ve done a great job of so far is managing (big-time) success, which is really hard to do when you haven’t had it before.”